I signed. I don't understand this extreme delay between ND games and it does seem like the Nancy fans do at least deserve a strait answer on a timetable for release even if that answer is 'we're not even working on it right now'.

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Friendship is unnecessary,like philosophy,like art.It has no survival value;rather it is one of those things that give value to survival-C.S.Lewis

HeR isn't really telling us anything, but if you read this article from May 2015 it's pretty easy to put two-and-two together. A little research/googling, and a lot of things become more clear. Lani was let go in late 2014 after she did the voice work for SEA and a few months after the new CEO was hired. That article was from May 2015, around the time that Sea of Darkness was released. Checking Linked In, where you can view an individual's employment history, gives you an idea of how many of the key players in the development team of the ND series were let go. For the next year, all attention was focused on Codes and Clues (most of which was presumably outsourced). They basically had no development team left save for the game designer, who apparently provided some design assistance on Codes and Clues. During this time, Midnight in Salem was obviously put on the back burner. Finally HeR Interactive put up a webpage for Midnight in Salem last year which consisted of character art and descriptions, along with a game description (which was a rough draft that had been written by the writer of SEA before she also left the company - since rewritten by someone else after comments that it didn't sound very polished - the writer herself on Twitter lamented the fact that it had been posted in that condition). I honestly think that the game page was put up in an attempt to placate fans who were continually asking questions about Midnight in Salem, or else we would not have seen that at all. Subsequently the game designer left HeR Interactive, seemingly the last person who was still there from the core team. Now we have learned that the game is being outsourced. They are telling us that outsourcing is nothing new for the ND series; that all of the work done on prior games was never 100% internal. What they are not mentioning is the fact that outsourcing for music, VA, and some character art is a far cry from outsourcing the entire game, which appears to be the case. And yes, the new Unity game engine might have made development take a bit longer, but not this long.

The big mystery now is why they are seemingly so reluctant to provide fans with an update. Surely they know what is going on concerning the status of the game, even if they are not the ones actually making it.

I love the last line of the article I linked to, by the way:

"A big part of my job will be to accelerate our ability to bring innovative games and apps to our customers more quickly.”

There's a lot of discussion about all of this on Reddit. One ex-employee that was part of the 2015 layoffs said that the whole team had been excited and enthusiastic at the prospect of developing Midnight in Salem. It's all very depressing.

ive been waiting ever since 2016 and here its 2017 dont they know that were waiting for it to come out lol

They certainly do know - people are bashing them and complaining about it pretty much every day on Facebook. All they are saying at the moment is that good progress on the game is being made but that they can't give us a release date as yet. The game is being outsourced, so who knows what will ultimately happen.

Something weird is going on! Why all the mystery? No reasonable explanations or information. I have a feeling we might never see Midnight In Salem. I go to the HER forum but nothing is being said. There are a lot of young fans of the Nancy Drew games who must be very upset and frustrated. This is just plain ridiculous! There would be a lot of revenue coming into the company. Why are they dragging their heels? I don't get it!

I guess I'll pull out my copy of "Curse Of Blacknoor Manor" (my favorite) and get my Nancy Drew fix!

Edited by Penny Lane (03/10/1708:14 PM)

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The Beatles saved the world from boredom- George Harrison